Society at its Finest

*Ding* the classic iPhone text message default tone “note” goes off, and just like that our hand reaches out, picks up our phone and before we know it we are once again controlled. We have been conditioned by our technological devices to respond when they want us to respond rather than when we want to respond. We are becoming a society that behaves just like Pavlov’s dogs who were trained to salivate when the bell sounds rather than when they actually saw the food- or the good stuff. We are losing our ability to reason and act for ourselves, as we allow the world to train us to automate our actions, our opinions, and even our very morals and beliefs.

Before I go on, I must say that I do in fact use social media and I love my smart phone! However, I’ve recently begun seeing the flaws of them and I want to point out some of the pitfalls that we can easily be trapped by through their usage. I’m not promoting the absolute abandonment of either technology or social media, rather I’m promoting the idea of awareness. Awareness in our use of social media and technology. Why do we open our phones? Why do we post what we do? Are the things we are viewing on the internet because we choose to or are we being compelled by a conditioned habit or mere routine? Are we creating a false image of our lives so that we can feel good by the number of marks of “approval” our followers give us?

Social media and technological advances are mind-boggling and they are wonderful contributions to the exponential growth and progress that our society has seen in recent years, however like I’ve alluded to, they are often abused and destructive. Think about it, ten years ago we took pictures for the sake of the relationships or memories that they could preserve. Now we often take a picture because we haven’t posted a picture today, my followers would love this, this would make a good profile picture, or perhaps I could use this photo for the birthday or wedding brag post I’m going to write about my mom or dad; my boyfriend or girlfriend; my best friend, husband or wife. Why do we do even do that? Well, Queen’s University’s emeritus philosophy professor Dr. Prado states that:

“Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and so forth revolve around built-in metrics of attention— Likes, Retweets, Followers, and so on— so when we use these apps, we are playing a very addictive game of vying for attention points. As our scores get higher, our desire for attention points increases. When we value another person’s opinion, or want to express that we care about them, we pay them in attention points. We desire more and more quantities attention, while investing less time and energy into the quality of our social lives” (Prado 119).

Like Dr. Prado said we’re messing around with “a very addictive game”. We are informed, thanks to the Merriam-Webster medical dictionary, that the definition of addiction is a “persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be physically, psychologically, or socially harmful”(Merriam-Webster). Over the past decade as social media and technology has been a blooming and rapidly growing industry, researchers have studied and tested the consequences of social media and development. With that comes consequences, both positive and negative. As mankind we have never before been able to communicate in general to massive amounts of people as we now are able to. It has never been so easy to remain in contact with new friends as well as your childhood next-door neighbor. However, it has been studied in youth that “depressed mood goes up overall among SNS [social network sites] users over nonusers, and self-esteem goes down for SNS users over nonusers” (Moore 141). Youth are generally the study group with social media usage since they are the generation of concern; they aren’t fully developed yet and they are generally the more tech-savvy generation. With that said though, I’m positive if these studies were done with adults, results would be similar.

My opinion comes with personal experience. In all due respect to my friend and their family, I would like to share with you what I saw technology and social media poorly used do to a friend. (Note: I do acknowledge that there were other contributing factors other than social media and technology, but they played a huge part). I had a friend who was constantly on their phone- using snapchat, tinder, facebook, instagram, you name it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that their phone would make that classic *ding* noise on average at LEAST twenty times in the space of ten minutes. It’s hard to believe, but those who knew this friend could attest to this fact. Their friends and I would sometimes joke that “oh, so and so left! I’m not hearing their phone going off anymore.” Unfortunately, although this friend was brilliant, loved by everyone and the life of the party, they did not feel the self-worth that they held and they had many nights where they were so depressed that their body literally would shut-down and we couldn’t do anything to help them to come out of the mental agony in a world only they could understand.

I’m not saying that the use of social media and technology are automatic triggers for depression, addiction, low self-esteem, or other problems in life, but they certainly can become gateways to problems such as these if we aren’t aware of how we choose to use them.

One last item I would like to close on, is that there is brain chemicals that are involved as we use social media. “Wagstaff reports that ... “teenage brains release dopamine [a chemical “that helps control the brain's reward and pleasure”]... so, when their device buzzes and they see a ‘Like,’ they get a rush from it... making it harder for them to put their phones away” (Moore 143) (Wilson). If we do not pay attention to these potential pitfalls of social media usage and technology use, they are going to increasingly control our lives and society more and more causing more problems. Keep using social media and technology for the positive attributes it has: keeping in touch with close friends and family, spreading the word on important events, and other wonderful benefits that they hold. However, be aware of what you are posting, why are you posting it, and if are you posting information or pictures for the sake of other’s benefits or to rack up the attention points.

Works Cited

“Addiction.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster,

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction. Accessed 7 Apr. 2017.

Moore, Cherrie. "A Study of Social Media and Its Influence on Teen Information

Seeking Behaviors." Serials Librarian, vol. 71, no. 2, Aug-Sep 2016, pp. 138-145. EBSCOhost. Accessed 7 April 2017.

Prado, C. G. “Social Media and Your Brain: Web-Based Communication Is Changing How We

Think and Express Ourselves.” ABC-CLIO, LLC, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central.

ebookcentral.proquest.com.dist.lib.usu.edu/lib/usu/reader.action?docID=4731151. Accessed 7 April 2017

Wilson, Robert Evans. “Psychology Today.” Psychology Today,

www.psychologytoday.com/basics/dopamine. Accessed 7 April 2017.